This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.

Mains

I didn’t do Kara last night. I had the opportunity to.. but it turns out we already had 3 healers in the raid. Suddenly West Kingdom is overrun with healers (we didn’t even have all of the healers logged in). Instead I took the night to play Lilac. My goal is to get her to 70 so that she can be my “DPS” toon. So I can still play when an additional healer isn’t necessary.
If I had to declare a “main” right now I guess I’d have to say Tatia my Holy Paladin is my main. That is if you define main as “your most progressed toon that is in demand when you run instances”. I heal. I’m good at it. I have more fun playing Lilac, my affliction warlock. Currently it’s harder to play Lilac. There are more buttons and big bangs on Lilac. BUT Lilac isn’t yet 70.. and definitely isn’t as geared as Tatia.

West Kingdom currently has seven players with healers as their main (Zynnia, Weaver, Ireena, Ginomi, Tatia, Validor, Khoss). That’s a lot of healers. Especially when you consider that we only have 19 players with 70s in the guild.

One of the problems facing West Kingdom is that we don’t really have any “mains” that are tanks. Gongniu is our main tank.. but he has suggested that he would rather be playing his Warlock. Amellea is our main off-tank.. but he has suggested that he’d rather respec back to healing. All the other tanks are someone’s alts.

This has put us in the rather odd position of rotating a lot of alts through our Kara runs. This has allowed Gongniu to play his non-tanking toons and has somewhat tamped down the impatience of the guild to see progression (it’s ok to still be in Kara if my alt can do the run and get the gear she needs). Unfortunately this also has caused us to stall out on and fail to kill some bosses that we should already have. Our mains can slam-dunk Aran.. but if you sub in 1-2 alts then suddenly your dps is lower.. and the players have lower expertise with the class they’re playing.

I don’t know the cure for this. Well actually I do.. the cure would be to recruit into the guild players who LOVE to tank and want to play all the time. Then we could buzz right through Kara and move on to the other dungeons. BUT since that’s not going to happen I guess I’ll just be another person leveling up an alt.

On anther subject, I know it’s a little bit late.. but here’s my valentine poem for you. I didn’t write it.. but I did laugh.

3 comments to Mains

So, last night was my first night bringing my fledgling resto shaman to Kara. For the first time our raid has had access to some very potent resto shaman abilities. Namely, Earth Shield, Mana tide totem and Chain heal. Honestly, I believe our raid went very smoothly. Poor Odie(our mage) even managed to stay alive for most of the run. Not disparaging anyones healing ability… Truth be known mine is still kinda weak(just over 1200+ healing unbuffed) So I am sure that my contribution was small. But I assert that the addition of these tools along with totems covering both parties in the raid made a big difference.

However, last night I heard several comment on vent that we were “healer heavy”. Funny, in the past we have had three healers in the raid and no one complained. So, why now I wonder?

I’ll tell you plain… I decided to leave the DPS group because I was tired of being judged strictly on how close I was to the top of the damage meters. I felt that I brought so much more to the raid as a mage, namely consistant high DPS w/o the aggro, yet I was forced to dance the fine line between max DPS and pulling aggro and dying. Yet, I see others in the raid that are at the top of the charts and either suck down the heals or just simply die. Not a game I want to play.

I think honestly we should outlaw damage meters as a guild. Instead focusing on teamwork and our ability to pull off a successful boss-kill.

*ahem* when the “healer heavy” comments were made we actually had 4 healers in the raid (Khoss, Validor, Zynnia, Tatia). At least in the case of Tatia, having additional healers really gimps the DPS of the raid.

Fiancee and Grimr definately have the “my dick is bigger than yours” competition going to see who can top the damage meter. I agree that it’s detrimental. Unfortunately I and the other healers haven’t been strict about not healing the non-tanks so the DPS/pulling aggro race continues.

LOL,
That is so funny because pretty much the same thing is going on in our guild Night Haven on Alleria. Lots of new healers all of a sudden. I sat out on the 22nd to allow a new Pally healer to run. He had a great night 5 drops I think.

I played my Lock (Exarkunell) and took him to Outland at 58 and stopped at 60 with lots of new green loots. Locks are so OP’d. I then respec’d my Mage(Hamakkus) who was dying all the time fire spec’d and went frost. OMG it makes so much difference and I think I gained three levels in Duskwallow Marsh and had fun doing it.

We have Kara on a one night clear except for Nightbane. Next night I get back in the mix and we get our guild 1st on Nightbane for a full Kara clear….Sweetness!